Give Me Back My Legions(20)

Foot soldiers followed the cavalrymen. One thing the Romans had learned from painful experience: wherever they went in Germany, they went in force. Small parties of men were all too likely to disappear. Better not to tempt the barbarians into doing what they weren’t supposed to.

Varus’ horse stepped off the bridge and onto the muddy ground on the east bank of the Rhine. Its hooves stopped echoing. They made the usual thumping and squelching noises instead.

Vala Numonius had dropped back by half a length to let Varus precede him. Now he caught up again. “Welcome to Germany, sir,” he said.

“Germany,” Varus echoed. He didn’t seen any Germans here on their side of the river. He didn’t particularly miss them. He’d seen plenty in Vetera: big, fair, noisy men with an exaggerated sense of their own importance. Some of the soldiers’ women were pretty in an exotic way, though. They had plenty to hold on to, that was for sure.

The cavalry commander pointed toward the trees, which had been cut down for several stadia around the bridgehead. A lot of the timber from them probably went into the bridge. “They’re watching us from in there,” Numonius said.

“Let them watch. It will teach them respect,” Varus said.

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a German stepped into the cleared ground from among the trees. The man turned around, bent over, undid his cloak, and waggled his pale, bare backside at the Romans. Then he straightened, wrapped the cloak around himself again, and loped off into the woods.

Some of the horsemen behind Varus laughed. Others swore. “So much for respect, sir,” Vala Numonius said.

Biting his lip in rage, Varus pointed out to where the German had vanished. “Seize him! Crucify him!” he shouted.

“Sir, there’s no hope,” said a cavalry officer who’d been on the frontier for a while. “In the forests, they’re like animals. They have dens to lay up in, or they can climb trees like wall lizards wish they could. And he might be trying to lure a detachment right into an ambush.”

He spoke respectfully, as a man had to do when trying to talk a provincial governor out of an order. Varus muttered, still steaming. But he could see that the soldier made good sense. If he fought on this side of the Rhine, he needed to fight on his terms, not the barbarians’.

“Very well,” Varus said heavily. “Very well. We’ll let him get away with that - for now. But the time will come when this whole province learns better. And that time will come soon, by the gods.”

Numonius clapped his hands. “Well said, sir!” he exclaimed. From the other cavalry officer came an unmistakable sigh of relief.

A pale moon shone down on Segestes’ steading. Arminius stood at the edge of the trees, looking things over. The steading seemed quiet, the way it should at night. If things weren’t as they seemed, chances were he would die inside the hour.

He shrugged. If he died, he would die doing what was right, doing what was important. No one would say he’d let Segestes dishonor him. He knew the woman he’d sent here had talked with Thusnelda. She’d told him so herself, after she came away. She wasn’t from his father’s steading, so Segestes would have had no reason to suspect her.

But Arminius didn’t know how Thusnelda felt. The woman who served him - he’d hired her with the fat gold earring he’d taken from the dead Pannonian - hadn’t been able to tell what she thought. She’d kept her own counsel. If she liked this Tudrus, or if she obeyed her father without thinking ... If any of that was true, Arminius would have a thin time of it tonight.

One of Segestes’ dogs let out a tentative bark. A couple of others joined in a moment later. They trotted toward him.

He wore a fat leather sack on his belt. He reached for that instead of his sword. “Come on, boys. Come here,” he called, as if the beasts belonged to his own father.

They weren’t so fierce as they might have been - that was plain. Arminius’ hopes soared. Through the woman, he’d told Thusnelda to feed them as much as they would hold. And now he pulled more chunks of raw meat from the sack and tossed them in front of the dogs.

Greedy as swine, they dug in. Arminius gave them more meat. He kept some in the sack, though: he was certain Segestes had more dogs than these. And, sure enough, two big brutes met him halfway to Segestes’ house. He bribed them the same way as he had the others. They hadn’t made much noise, and quieted down at once. Anybody who gave them meat had to be a friend.

The door. Arminius tapped it, lightly, with a forefinger. That tiny noise shouldn’t bother anyone sleeping in there. But if someone was awake and waiting for it ...